Norway 2009, Day 15, Trondheim to Fort Collins, July 18th, 2009

10:43am, Vaernes airport (Trondheim). Last moments in Norway...

Woke up to the 7:30am alarm, showered, packed, and loaded the car. Meanwhile, Karl was up early and baking some scones with pear for breakfast. We ate outside in their greenhouse, under once again, delightful skies.

Darwin is one swell dog. Wendy and I are both not "dog people", but enjoyed Darwin's quiet and well behaved manner. We dined in the greenhouse for breakfast...

Karl made some yummy pear-filled scones...

At 9am we said our good-byes, and left for the airport, which is ~20km outside of town. We stopped at a couple of toll booths, and somehow got back more change than we paid, from the toll attendents. Before reaching the airport we stopped at a gas station to fill the tank, and I decided to try a bacon wrapped hot dog, since this seemed like a very Norwegian thing to do, before leaving the country. Karl ate these 4 days in a row at one point during the trip. I wasn't that hungry, but it seemed like a good way to spend some extra Norwegian currency.

A look at our trusty Fiat, who carried us 1575 miles on just 31.5 gallons of gas. 50 mpg! What a car. We sure dirtied it up a bit over the past 2 weeks (as seen from the trunk)...

I couldn't resist trying a bacon wrapped hotdog before departing Norway. Karl would be proud...

Our directions were good, and we made it to the airport without a wrong turn. When I returned the rental car, I was informed they did not accept cash (a recent policy change), which was a bummer, since I had 2080 Nok left ($325) which I had planned to use up. That meant we had to blow 2080 Nok in the airport gift shops, or save it. Trondheim airport didn't have a currency exchanger, and we'd be flying straight to Denmark. Nothing good to buy here, so the money will be coming along.

11:30am flight should be boarding soon...

3:41pm Copenhagen runway...

The flight from Trondheim was smooth. Used my laptop in flight, and did some crosswords. Widoroe is a great airline, with their high quality free snack, even on a 70 minute flight.

At Copenhagen airport, I browsed the currency exchangers, but their best offer was a 8.5% fee. They need to exchange the money twice (once to Danish Krone, then to USD, a double hit). So I decide to wait and check the rates in the US. No hurry. (SIDE NOTE: The USD fell over 15% against the Norway Kroner in the next few months, so it's now worth $370. I should have brought back more! ;-)) I charge my laptop at the gate, stitching pics.

I got my passport stamped 3x today, all in Copenhagen, after re-entering the international flight section a few times.

The mini sandwich and piece of chocolate on Wideroe is an awesome free snack for any airline these days. Though doesn't compare to the full meals on cross continental flights...

7:58pm, Chicago airport (2:58am Norway time)...

The long flight from Copenhagen to Chicago arrived 30 minutes early. The lunch in flight was good. I watched the movies "I Am Sam", and "17 Again", and also stitched pics until my laptop battery died.

US customs was no problem. We got our boarding passes at a United terminal, and volunteered to get bumped. I charged my laptop in the terminal. They didn't need any volunteers, but we found ourselves called to the stand and presented with new tickets. An upgrade to 1st class! There were lots of standy-bys on the plane, but somehow they gave us 1st class seats. Oh well, I won't complain...

Getting very tired as I write this...

A view of sunset from the Chicago to Denver flight. After 2 weeks above "the Circle", I had ALMOST forgetten that the sun sets...

1st class was a rare treat, so I had to document the perks...

7:16am, Fort Collins. (the next morning)

First Class was a mixed blessing. Fun to have the big seat, and free wine and food, but also meant we had to stay awake to take advantage of it all. By the time we landed in Denver at 9:30pm (5:30am in Norway), we were exhausted. Fortunately we had friends picking us up at the airport terminal, so we needed only to transport our 4 heavy checked bags, and 2 carry on bags, to the curb, where Pei and Martha drove us home. Wendy passed out after 15 minutes, while I held on a good 40 minutes, chatting about the trip, before zonking. I can only imagine the difficulty of carrying 6 bags to the long term parking shuttle, and making the hour drive home after staying up til the equivalent of 6:30am. Many thanks to Pei and Martha.

We arrived back to Fort Collins ~11:30pm. Struggled to unload the heavy luggage, and left it all on the floor. I checked the garden, with my head lamp (first darkness in 17 days!), and it looked healthy (my new water timer must have worked).

Thus concludes an excellent artic Norwegian adventure, and thus begins the huge task of stitching and sorting pics, to build this web journal...